


how to not fall in love

by buddybabie



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Pining, Post-Canon Fix-It, Soft Billy Hargrove, just trust me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25937980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buddybabie/pseuds/buddybabie
Summary: how to not fall in love in 16 stepsa guide by billy hargrove
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 11
Kudos: 117





	how to not fall in love

Step 1: Don’t see him.

You could just not look. If you don’t look, you don’t see his hair falling in front of his face, the stupid prep clothes he wears, the big brown eyes that make you want to get on your knees, just so you can see them widen more. If you don’t see any of that, it’ll be smooth sailing. Just whatever you do, don’t look.

  
  


Step 2: Don’t ask about him.

You’ve seen him. You couldn’t not see him. Out of all the girls looking your way, and boys glaring at you with their arms crossed, you could only see him and the confused look on his face when he talked to that pretty girl in his car. 

You shouldn’t ask about him. The kid with more freckles than you could ever count tells you he used to be _the king._ You ask what happened and the kid shrugs. You don’t ask about the hurt in his eyes. But you can’t help yourself, you want pretty boy’s attention, you _crave it,_ it makes the blood in your veins boil and the heat is almost as good as kissing those pretty pink lips, you think. At least you pretend it is. 

Don’t call him a bitch when you shoulder check him during basketball practice, leering in his ear as you guard him. Don’t grind your hips against him as you do, _it’s a joke,_ you know everyone thinks that, the coach thinks that, but you can’t help but want so badly, so you push him down. 

Tell him to _plant his feet_ as you help him up only to send him crashing to the floor again. You hate how soft his hands are and how underneath all the sweat, you can smell something _expensive,_ lingering. 

Freckles talks shit in the showers and you join in with _‘pretty boys like you’ve got nothing to worry about’_ and _‘plenty of bitches in the sea’_ roll off the tongue, and you mean them teasingly, but your voice saves you and makes them mean and dirty. That’s good because the anger means he closes his eyes and tilts his head back under the spray of the shower, and doesn’t notice your eyes trailing lower and lower. 

When he snaps his eyes back open, you grin lazily at him and he just looks defeated. One more nail in the coffin, you step out of the shower and turn his water off for him. Try not to think about how his eyebrows furrow in frustration. 

When you get home, tack up a picture of a porn star with big tits up on the inside of your closet door. Keep that door closed when your dad’s not home, and ignore the bile that rises in your throat every time you see it.

  
  


Step 3: Steal his crown.

Go to the Halloween party. Look like you don’t care at all because you really don’t until you see him in the corner.

Do a keg stand with Freckles and as the seconds drone on, the cheering gets louder and you know you’ve dethroned the former king officially, no matter how long he’s been away in reality. 

Have the crowd screaming your name, and don’t look at him out of the corner of your eye. When you do, give him a look. _I broke your record, I’m better than you, that counts for something, right?_ He will look upset and you hope that it’s because you did _something_ , but when he tears through the house minutes later, tears running down his face, you know it wasn’t anything you did, and you hate it.

Don’t try to make him feel something, because it won’t work past foul play in the gym and snide remarks that he blinks off. He won’t feel anything for you, and that’s _good_ . You hear your fathers voice in your head. _That’s good._

Step 4: Assume the worst.

Don’t find him with your kid sister and her friends at night in some old shack of a house. If you do, assume the worst, make your words come out like rusty knives and poke into his chest.

Spy your sister peaking out the window and see the boy she talks to, the one that your dad would kill her for, but the most of the town wouldn’t bat an eyelash at. Tell yourself that you’re doing this for _her_ because she shouldn’t be making friends with people that _hurt_ , she knows how that turned out for her mom. Let that anger and jealousy drive you up the wall as you grab the kid by the neck and shove him, you’re out for blood.

Feel your whole body on _fire_ as Harrington swings a punch at you. _There’s that King Steve everyone’s been telling me about!_ Fight dirty, learn from your mistakes. Cut him down so that even if you wanted to, you could never have him. Enjoy his fury and attention to you, soak it up like an old fucking god. Break a plate over his head and laugh when it shatters. When your kid sister swings a horrible bat with nails at you, know you fucked up. Repeat her words back to her as she injects something into your bloodstream. Fade to black.

Step 5: Get your ass beat.

Let your old man kick you and scream about _respect and responsibility._ Hate your step-sister for it, know it’s not her fault. Make it her fault anyways. Take the beating and let the names he screams at you seep into your pores because that’s the only way you’ll ever find out who you really are. 

Stay quiet and let him call you a _pansy, fairy, faggot_ , and pretend that Max isn’t crying in her room next to yours, and that Susan isn’t sitting at the living room table with her head in her hands like she sits every night. Take the pain and keep it in your soul in the form of bruises on your back and face, in gashes alongside your spine. 

Don’t be thankful when you go into Max’s room when Neil’s gone, and her concealer is sitting there on her vanity, in plain sight, like a gift. It’s too light for you but it’ll work in covering your black eye. Let her know _this isn’t over, this isn’t forgiveness_ with a look as you pass each other in the hallway. She looks defiant but so sad. Ignore that. 

Go in your room and jerk off to the woman on your closet door and try to finish despite feeling sick. Fall asleep unhappy and hurting, but you don’t think about doe eyes and that’s an upside. If you tell yourself that enough times, it makes it true, right?

Step 6: Don’t think about him.

Get your mind off of it. Everything is normal. Avoid your stepsister, and try not to notice that every time you drop her off at the arcade, he seems to be there to drop off a kid with curly hair. Don’t notice how he smiles at the kid like he’s his _friend._ Don’t think about how you’d kill to have him look at you like that, but those days are long gone and you’re way past salvation. 

Get a job at the pool, flirt with the older women that look more like the woman on your wall than Steve Harrington. Fuck his ex-girlfriends mom, or at least try to. It’s not you, it will never be you, but you can pretend it is with suave smiles and a deep voice murmuring _private lessons_ in Mrs. Wheeler’s ear. 

Rehearse your lines in your Camaro as you make your way to the Motel 6. Practice smiling in your mirrors and pretend that if you do this, then you’ll be cured of pretty boys that can’t take a punch. Don’t think about the consequences of your actions and let yourself drift before something hits your car. 

Step 8: Lose yourself.

You fumble for the phone in the booth, but everything’s quiet and horrible and you can feel water in your ears. Show up in a strange world and see yourself and so many others, but they’re wrong, somehow. They tell you to _build_ and you keep screaming why, why, why, but your doppelganger smiles the same smile that you practiced in the mirror and you feel sick. The gashes in your back that healed months ago start to open and you feel _wet_ and _cold,_ and you think of warm brown eyes and the concealer Max left out for you months ago. 

You wake up but your thoughts are muted. You want to build. You go through all the motions, do what the thing inside you tells you to do. You murder and the sickness inside you never seems to be satisfied. Like a hydra, every head you cut off, two more grow back. 

You rip off the poster from your closet door. You don’t need it, don’t need to trick yourself. You’re not human enough anymore to want to do anything but build. Cover yourself from the sun. Anything to be cold, so you don’t feel your blood boiling, but not in the way it used to. Maybe it’s better now. 

When you step into the sauna, you feel yourself combust. Tears roll out and you _wish_ you meant them. You see Max’s face through the window and the _thing_ uses her sympathy to distract, letting sweaty, horrible tears stream down your face. 

_It’s not my fault._

You smash the window open and you feel less and less human as you breathe. 

There are monsters in this town, and you’re one of them.  
  


Step 9: Die. 

Rip yourself apart in a moment of clarity and adrenaline. Save the little girl from yourself and pray that it’ll be over and you won’t ever have to go back to that house on Cherry Lane.

The little girl shows you the last time you’ve ever been truly happy. She says that your mom was pretty. Let yourself think about her for the first time in years. 

_‘Seven feet.’_

Think of waves and the smell of suntan lotion and ice cream shacks. 

Think of the ocean and, in your struggling breath, think of brown eyes and wonder if you kissed every dot on his body that you’ve tried so hard not to catalogue, _would he taste like the sea?_

Be the unsung hero and pray that it’s all over. The poet’s choice, not the lovers because you were never built for _love_ , were you?

  
  


Step 10: Come back from the dead.

Let the doctors clean your veins of black blood. Let them patch you back up with antiseptic and burn the monster out of you. 

Only rip your IVs out a few times a day to show them you’re not worth it. They always put them back. If they want to save you, that’s their problem. 

Don’t open the package with _‘SH’_ scrawled on it in messy, curly letters. Eat the dollar store chocolate that your step-sister snuck into the hospital for you instead. 

Break and open the package. Hold back tears when you see a small teddy bear staring back at you. There’s no note besides the initials on the wrapping. Don’t acknowledge that your face is wet until snot runs down your nose and your shirt is soaked. You let real sobs pour out, _your sobs,_ the first real tears you've cried in months. 

_Why did they forgive me?_

You decide they didn’t, the chocolate was an act of goodwill, so that Max can wash her hands of you with no hard feelings, but that begs the question _why would there be hard feelings?_ You think back to the pale concealer in her room. _Is the fighting over?_

You can’t even begin to reason why _Steve Harrington,_ of all people, would even start to forgive you, so you say that he _didn’t, why would he_ , and don’t think about the noiseless image of a plate shattering as you fall asleep to the sound of your heart monitor. 

You wake up with arms wrapped around your neck, frizzy red hair in your mouth. 

_‘Watch the back, shitbird.’_ You try to sneer, but it comes out too gentle. She laughs wetly.

_‘I’m glad you’re back.’_

Your mouth just hangs open and, slowly, you hug her back. It’s awkward, you haven’t given a real hug in _years,_ and it feels like you’re choking and your skin is on fire, and it’s the blood-boiling feeling all over again. You want more.

You see Steve Harrington out of the corner of your eye. 

He nervously scratches the back of his neck. Despite everything in your being screaming _no,_ you still want to run your fingers through his hair. There are bags under his eyes and scars on his face that haven’t quite healed. Busted lip. He’s so pretty it hurts. 

_‘Long time, no see, pretty boy.’_

You wait for the retort, the rattling of the hospital bed, but he just laughs sweetly and it feels like a punch in the gut. 

He tells you that you’re going to be staying with him for a while. When you ask why, he shrugs and says _I have the room._ Unlike Tommy on that first day, you want to ask him why he looks hurt when he says it, but you don’t. You just nod appreciatively and continue to listen to Max ramble. 

  
  


Step 12: Don’t move into his big, empty house. 

Don’t look around your room in awe when he helps you bring your bags up. 

_‘Sorry, it’s the guest room closest to mine. If you want to use the other one-‘_

You cut him off by punching him gently in the arm. 

_‘Shut up, Harrington. This is fuckin’ perfect.’_

He smiles, and you smile, because on the clean shelves are your old records that you know Max helped move from your old room to this one. On the wall, your _Metallica_ poster hangs, and Steve goes to the closet and pulls out a ripped poster. 

_‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted this still._ ’ He coughs out, embarrassed, and when you take a closer look, it’s the woman that you tore off your closet door. You let out a quick, barking laugh without thinking. His eyes squint, confused. 

Don’t say _‘I’m good, but thanks, pretty boy.’_

Don’t grab the poster and tear it down the middle, finishing the job, and drop it in the trash can. 

If you do, it’ll feel like a victory, so don’t do it, because once you do, you’ll never want to stop.

Don’t go night swimming in his pool once your wounds have healed more completely. Don’t revel in the lukewarm water. The monster might have left, but habits still remain, and you want to flush every memory of the _thing_ out, so you let yourself get your muscles get nice and warm as you swim. 

Don’t ask him to join you, him refusing immediately, and when you let your facade slip slightly in the water of the pool, your hurt face showing, you know he can see it because he says _‘sure’_ and strips off his shirt to join you. 

Don’t see his hair, wet and illuminated by the moonlight, and wonder if it’d still look that good on a beach in San Diego. 

Pretend you can’t hear him scream in the middle of the night, and pretend he can’t hear you crying and shouting when you wake up from a nightmare. 

  
  


Step 13: Don’t let him crawl into the guest room bed with you after you hear him screaming in his sleep. 

Pretend you don’t feel him relax when you throw an arm around his torso in your half-asleep state before you realize what exactly you’ve done. Don’t let your heart beat so loud that you can feel the pulse in your mouth as he shifts closer to your body, chasing your returning warmth. 

Don’t hold him in your arms like you’ve dreamed about so many times before, waking up feeling dizzy, clutching the cross around your neck. You know it’s wrong to think about him on his knees in front of you, but it’s somehow worse when you dream of him just lying in your arms as he rests, because _how could something so beautiful be wrong?_

Calm your beating heart and drift to sleep to the sound of him breathing. _It can’t be wrong._

  
  


Step 14: Don’t make him breakfast in the morning. 

Don’t sneak out of the bed and try not to wake him, slowly withdrawing your arm from where it’s nestled under him. If you give him a kiss on the forehead and see his nose wrinkle slightly, that’s your own fault. 

Don't pour your heart and soul into the pancakes, praying he forgives you for everything you’ve done in the past because you don’t want to ask for forgiveness, but you would in a heartbeat if he even hinted at wanting an apology. 

When he comes down the stairs, looking well-rested for the first time in months, and sees you at the stove humming to _Wham!_ on the walkman you took from his room, don’t give him a small smile when his mouth falls open in surprise, a cheeky grin making its way onto his face. 

_‘I didn’t know you liked Wham!’_ He says. 

_‘I don’t.’_ You reply. 

Don’t ask him what kind of eggs he wants, and don’t kiss back when he crowds you against the counter to cut you off mid-question, with his lips against yours. You can taste his morning breath and it’s _horrible_ , but you kiss back anyways and run your hands through his hair like you’ve wanted to do since the first time you met him.

Step 15: Don’t run away with him to your hometown. 

Don’t pack your bags and help him leave a note on the fridge to his parents saying _‘I’ll call you when I’m settled in’._ Don’t squeeze his hand when he mentions that his parents won’t even know he’s left for another month, when they come home from somewhere that starts with an ‘ _s’_ in Europe. 

Don’t hug your stepsister goodbye, both of you with wet faces, but you’re both laughing and she pokes you in the chest and you mess up her hair. 

When the curly-haired Henderson kid comes up to you, he grabs your arm and quietly tells you ‘ _take care of him’._ You blink in surprise, but then nod, keeping your face blank. He studies you for a moment, but it seems like enough for him when he nods back and turns away to talk to Steve again. 

You decide to walk up to your sister's boyfriend or _not-boyfriend_ , you’re not sure where they stand since the last time she told you everything that was happening in her life. You look Lucas Sinclair in the eyes and say ‘ _I’m sorry’_ quietly, but firmly. He looks at you. 

_‘It was fucked up, man.’_ He says, but the ice in his eyes seems to give way when he sees your actually remorseful expression. 

You nod. _‘It really was.’_

_‘Don’t do it again.’_

You hold out your hand, and he looks at it, and then shakes. 

_‘Take care of my sister, Sinclair.’_ You say, looking over at Max, who has her arm around El and is talking to Steve about something. You let your gaze linger on him laughing through wet eyes as he writes the address of your aunts house on a half sheet of paper. 

You almost don’t hear Lucas say _‘It’s what we do’_ before he walks away. 

You’re throwing the bags in the back of Steve’s Bimmer when Robin Buckley comes up to you. She knows most everything, and it would make you uncomfortable, if she didn’t call Steve _dingus_ and act like you and him holding hands at the kitchen table when she came over for breakfast was normal. She socks you on the arm and you pretend to wince in pain, wring one last ounce of sympathy out of her, but she just snorts. 

_‘Call me when you two get there.’_ She reminds you and you roll your eyes, but you know you will. 

Joyce Byers is hugging Steve when you come to stand next to him, and to your surprise, she embraces you as well. 

_‘I’m happy for you boys.’_ She smiles sweetly, and you feel all choked up. You hug her back. It almost makes up for the goodbye your own mother never was able to give. 

Steve stands there, smiling at you, bright as the sun and you grin back. 

_‘Ready to go, princess?’_

_‘Cali, here we come.’_ He breathes and he sounds giddy, which makes your head spin with something. 

One last group hug, and Max comes up and throws her arms around your neck once again. 

_‘You better call every fucking weekend, dipshit.’_ She mumbles into your shoulder, and you laugh and promise you will. Another victory. 

Right before you get into the passenger seat, Steve grabs your hand and squeezes it once, twice. 

You smile.

  
  


Step 16: Don’t share your life with him.

Don’t bring him to your favorite beach, the one in San Diego that you’ve been dreaming about. 

Don’t share a bed with him in your aunt's house, her and her girlfriend of twenty years sleeping in their room across from yours, smiling at you two and making coffee every morning before they both head to the surf shop that your aunt's girlfriend owns on the pier. 

Don’t show him the pier, and kiss him underneath the dock when no one’s looking. Don’t lick the salty taste from his mouth and think about how it’s everything you thought it would be and more. 

Don’t buy a one bedroom apartment with him as your roommate, the landlord looking at you suspiciously, but not saying anything.

Don’t let him cut your hair with a pair of kitchen scissors in your small kitchen late at night when you both wake up from the nightmares that you just can’t escape. 

Don’t let him lick the salt and sweat off of your skin when you both come home, exhausted from work, and let him settle deep inside of you, crying out when he comes after you do. 

Nearly thirty years later, don’t cry tears of happiness when a man on the TV says that you can finally get married, thinking of when you were fourteen and you said that you would never get married because it wasn’t possible for you to fall in love. 

Don’t fall in love with him, because once you do, you can’t take it back. 

_But if you do, maybe it’ll be alright after all._

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @billyhairington on tumblr!
> 
> hope you enjoyed :)


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